Perishable foods for home, market, catering and restaurant buffets are conventionally chilled by ice or commercially manufactured containers of freezable material, or by refrigeration systems. When the ice melts and the freezable material warms, these cooling media lose their ability to keep foods safe and may render them unsuitable or hazardous for consumption. Typical refrigeration systems are bulky and costly, requiring condensers, coils and harmful chemicals and, further, must be serviced and maintained. Additionally, they are not easily adapted for portability.
Other foods need to be heated or kept warm for home, market, catering and restaurant buffet service. Conventional sources of heat include flame and electricity, e.g. by use of alcohol-based combustible gels, such as those offered under the tradename STERNO, or by electric hot plates. Flame sources often produce local hot spots and uneven heating and may produce fumes, odors, or other combustion products. The indoor pollution and health risks to food service workers and patrons from these combustion products are beginning to be viewed with concern by those in the industry.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,344,630 to Jarvis et al., which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, discloses a heated food cart which uses a thermoelectric heater “with an air circulatory system over the heating members of the thermoelectric solid state.” However, such cabinets may take a long time to reach a desired temperature and may be relatively inefficient.
Consequently, a system or method that allows for a transport cabinet to both heat and cool food which is efficient, and capable of reaching a desired temperature in a short amount of time with a simple set of controls and using only a single-type of temperature adjusting element would be an improvement in the art. The ability to use such a system with pre-existing food service trays, carts and other applications would be an additional improvement.